Tami Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon. I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation. The goal of the Sounds True Foundation is to provide access and eliminate financial barriers to transformational education and resources, such as teachings and trainings on mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion. If you’d like to learn more and join with us in our efforts, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.
You’re listening to Insights at the Edge. Today, my guest is Erin Falconer. Erin is an author, digital entrepreneur, and the editor in chief and co-owner of Pick the Brain, one of the most trusted self-improvement communities online. She was named one of the top digital entrepreneurs in Los Angeles by Los Angeles Confidential and one of the Top Ten Women Changing the Digital Landscape for Good by Refinery29. Erin has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and lives in Los Angeles. And with Sounds True, she’s released a new book, it’s called How to Break Up with your Friends: Finding Meaning, Connection, and Boundaries in Modern Friendships.
Truth be told, I felt a little nervous when I saw the title of Erin Falconer’s new book, How to Break Up with your Friends, and that we’d be having this conversation. To me, it’s such a tender topic with so much nuance. There’s so much love and complexity in many of our friendships. Erin is a terrific guide for this conversation, bringing us to what always seems like the most important thing when a tender heart is involved. Truth telling, knowing yourself, and expressing yourself with clarity and deep listening. Here’s my conversation with Erin Falconer.
Erin, you’re a Canadian who’s now living in Los Angeles, and you wrote a book that was published in 2018 called How to Get S-H-I-T Done. Oh, just say it, Tami, but OK. And it was a book that was very well received. And I’d love to know a little bit of your journey, of your winding path of what took you to Los Angeles, and the writing of How to Get Sh*t Done.
Erin Falconer: Well, like so many in Los Angeles, I’m an overnight success that took 17 years. And what I mean by that is so many people that have kind of made it onto the other side, it is never, or very rarely a linear journey. And so, I started out in high school and in my very young years being extremely type A—and I still am to a certain degree—but very grades, grades, success, success, success, very studious, did all the things, school president, head of the debate, you just name it, I was doing it. And I never really stopped to critically think about that or analyze anything.
And one day, I was driving to my best friend’s house in Winnipeg. And on the radio, there was an ad, a commercial to find Canada’s next funniest comedian. And something in that commercial hit me like an arrow in the heart. And when I arrived at my best friend’s house, instead of doing a study session, I spent the next 45 minutes convincing her that we would create a stand-up comedy routine and enter this competition, much to her horror. That was the first instance that I had of kind of an inner voice coming out and, of course, I didn’t know what that was then, right?
And so that kind of set me off. I did that. We did very well. I continued to do comedy as a side hustle for three or four or five years after that. But I continued on my academic trajectory. I went to McGill, then I applied to law school. And on the eve of going to law school, I had another kind of epiphany and said, “You know, you’re having so much fun doing this comedy stuff, why don’t you try writing?” Long story short. That’s what I did in Toronto. When that didn’t work well in Toronto. I said, “You know, I got to give this a bigger shot.” And I moved to LA. And I moved to LA with the best intentions and the biggest hopes and dreams, but with no plan.
So what life did was, say, a hard pass. I found myself very down and out and with no options. And I think one of the worst things that happened is that I had decided to listen to that inner voice and I thought that inner voice had led me astray. And so, with no options, I was having to go back to Canada. I had no money, I had no career, I had no car, and my papers were up. I had one of those rom-com moments where I was literally crying on the bathroom floor going, like, “Oh, my God, what happened to my life? I should be a lawyer right now.” And I call two mentors—two mentors that have kind of been guiding me the whole time. And I said, “Oh, my God, what have I done? This is a terrible mistake.” And both of them, who don’t know each other, said to me, “Well, what is that inner voice? What is your intuition telling you? What do you want to really do??” And I said, “Well, I want to write. That’s what I want to do. But who cares what I want to do? Look at the situation I’m in.”
Anyways, they both convinced me to give it another try. So I made a promise to myself. I submitted 100 resumes on Craigslist, anything. Just to get any kind of job. I got one response to be a copyright assistant on a self-improvement startup in 2008, which is when startups were really just starting, blogging was really just starting. And I said, “OK, I’m going to take this job. But if I do it, I’m going to put a plan—I’m not just going to, whatever, be flying by the seat of my pants. And that’s kind of when my whole life started to really shift with intention and focus.
I found myself in the internet world. I found myself very curious about that. And I started writing my own blog called Pick the Brain. It wasn’t the kind of writing I moved down to Los Angeles for, but it was writing nonetheless. And I found myself in a very exciting and creative space, and I was able to take that—fortuitously and through some hard work—very, very far. And then I ended up raising a lot of money for another internet company. And then all of a sudden, all this time later, I got a call from a New York lead agency saying, “We’d love you to write a book.” And so, it kind of came full circle where I found myself being pitched to write and I couldn’t believe it.
Tthe funny thing about that is that when I got this email, I was so excited. I came up with all these ideas, these pitches for the call. I would say, “Oh, I could write about this, I could write about that.” And when I got on the call, and I was very excited to share my ideas, she was like, whoa, whoa, wait. I think there’s a misunderstanding. We love those ideas that you’re talking about, but we actually want you to write a book about you. And I was so devastated. I was like, who would read this book? What are you talking about? I thought I had all these great ideas. I got off the phone, I was very dejected. I was like, I’m not going to write a book about, whatever.
The next day, I went into the office, and I started to look around. And I had the great fortune of working with some amazing women, and I just kind of looked at how everybody was operating. And I was like, oh, I think we’re suffering from the same illness. We’re just going, going, going. We’re never stopping to take stock of our success, how we feel about our success, where we are, how we feel about being where we are, there’s no reflection, there’s no self-audit. It’s just go, go, go, go, go, and that’s a real problem. And out of that, I was like, now that’s a book. And I don’t have all the answers, but I want to write this and figure this out as I’m writing it.
Anyway, that’s about a 20-minute answer to your first question. But it just kind of like—it is the creation of 17 years of trying and failing and trying and failing and choosing to evolve in those failures rather than recoil and kind of denigrate into the fear-based version of myself.
TS: Now, I am just curious about two things. One, do you do comedy today ever?
EF: I haven’t in such a long time, but that is one of my New Year’s resolutions. I’ve been writing jokes down for a long time, but one of my New Year’s resolutions, if COVID ever decides to go away, is to go back on an open mic night and try and maybe workshop some new material.
TS: Your new book with Sounds True, How to Break Up with your Friends: Finding Meaning, Connection, and Boundaries in Modern Friendships. It’s a nonfiction prescriptive book, if you will, but there were some laugh-out-loud moments, Erin. I had a couple where I was, like, this woman’s really funny. I didn’t know you did comedy.
EF: Yes.
TS: OK, here’s my second question. When you hear your inner voice and you go, “Ah, that’s it.” It stopped you from going to law school. You pulled the emergency brake. How do you recognize it? Like, ah, there it is. This is important. This is not just more of this gabba gabba rap in my head.
EF: Right. Yes. So, here’s the thing. When those first things happened, when I heard the ad for the comedian, when [I had] the epiphany about not going to law school, I didn’t realize that was my inner voice at that time. I was just kind of—something popped into my head and then I fixed it. And even if I try to forget this, it keeps coming up, coming up. It’s only years, years, years later when I realized. And probably the first time I really started to realize that is when I had the calls with those two mentors in those very dark days, where their insistence that the truth was there and I needed to listen to that, regardless of what the reality was, this was the truth.
And that, I think, was probably the first time that I identified that in a concrete way, like, oh, that’s what that is. It’s a very magical, esoteric idea, but to be able to put maybe a little bit of a label on it and say, that’s the essence of who I am and it’s trying to push me in that direction. So for me, since then, I’ve spent—and part of my plan when I said I was going to take this crappy copywriting job, but put a plan around it, was to be very intentional and very—trying to live in the moment with intention. And one of the things I did was start practicing meditation, which was a real absolute game changer for me.
And I still do that today and I firmly believe it. And I know that that’s not for everybody. But what I like to say is I found this all the time when I was working at my old company. People would come in very excitedly to a meeting or run to my office and say, “Oh, my God. I have this great idea.” And they tell me the idea, and I go, “Yes, that’s amazing. How did you think of that?” And without fail, they will say something like, “I was just in the shower and it came to me.” Or “I was waking up and it came to me.”
So this is, for many, the only time in the day when you’re not thinking, right? When there’s hot water coming over, massaging your head with shampoo, and it’s just a couple of minutes and you’re not doing it intentionally. But it’s the only couple of minutes where you’re not thinking, right? So, for me, that’s the time where it’s such a clear, successful case study where it’s like when you are not all up in your schedule and the to-do list and all that stuff where this voice can emerge. The answers can emerge. But you can only do that if you are intentional about reducing the chaos.
So, whether you are into meditation or that’s not your thing, it is incumbent, it is imperative that you find your hot shower and you do that with extreme discipline every day. And there’s a water shortage in California, so I don’t want everybody going in for 20 minutes running their water. But metaphorically, to access the inner voice, which I believe everybody has, you need to silence everything else around you so that that voice can be heard, right?
TS: Right. Very clear, very clear. Now, one of the principles, I would say foundational, cornerstone principles that you introduced in How to Get Sh*t Done that really got my attention, and I want to talk to you about it, is when we take 100 percent responsibility for our lives, this leads to 100 percent freedom. And I wanted to understand more that connection. I think I understand the idea of taking 100 percent responsibility for everything that’s happening, I think, but I don’t get how that leads to 100 percent freedom.
EF: Well, because once you take responsibility for your action—and this actually, this concept really bleeds up into the other book as well and I’ll talk about that in a second. It’s that you are not beholden to anybody, right? When you give somebody the power of responsibility over something in your life or your actions or your success, then what you do is you give them some ownership over that, which they’re not even necessarily taking, literally taking, but you’re giving that away.
So, in order to be able to operate freely, you need to not give away those little pieces of power. And it’s kind of counterintuitive, because when you think about owning failures and owning things that you’re less proud of or owning challenges that you don’t want to assign your own, it feels like, I think that the general vibe or feeling on that is that you’re admitting weakness or something. But what you’re really doing is saying, even if that wasn’t the best outcome, I own that. I own that part of my narrative.
And so, every time you can carve that out, regardless of what the outcome is, you are kind of accumulating real estate, if you want, your own energetic real estate. And so, I think the idea is to flip the script on what it means to fail or what it means to, of course you want to feel—I want to be clear when I say—I’m not trying to have a rosy opinion of failure. I want you to feel the pain, I want you to feel the disappointment, I want you to feel the hurt. And then, I want you to give it a teachable moment. And the only way you can really do that is if you own it. Otherwise, it’s somebody else’s lesson to learn, whoever you’re attaching blame to.
So you have a lot more freedom to operate, to move, to pivot, to grow when you truly understand your responsibility and your ownership over everything that’s going on in your life. That’s not to say, asterisk or caveat, if something terrible has been done to you, I’m not suggesting you have ownership over that. But as they say, you cannot control what is happening to you, you can control how you react to it. I think that’s where the ownership piece comes in. Don’t throw your hands up and give away that power. Yes, that’s what I’d say on that. I don’t know if that answers your questions exactly.
TS: Yes, it does, and I think it’s interesting that in a way, there’s a connection between your first book How to Get Sh*t Done, where you’re really helping people say, “I’m going to take responsibility for my schedule, for what I prioritize, for what I put my time and energy in.” And now, with your new book on friendship, I’m going to take responsibility for the quality of my friendship life. And I’m curious how your attention turned and you thought this is the next big topic I want to tackle.
EF: Yes. So, it’s funny, because when I was thinking about what am I going to write as a follow-up to the first book—this whole foray into friendships started very oddly as a foray into, again, feminine productivity and productivity with a very specific female lens. I wasn’t thinking about friendship when I started this, I was thinking about how can I do the first book 2.0. But as I sort of was going down that rabbit hole, I kept bumping up against, not consciously, but relationship stuff. And again, not consciously, and I actually was actively working on a different concept for the second book, I put the whole pitch together.
My agent kept being very supportive, but lukewarm on it. It was like, aha. Not the feeling you want to have where it’s like, this is a home run, the kind of cheerleading that agents usually do. And I loved the idea and I just couldn’t really get the reaction. And so I was going in a different direction. And that’s why I say, unconsciously, I was bumping up against this relationship stuff. I finally put the whole thing together. It was about to go out and pitch it, and I woke up, again, I kind of referenced this before, I woke up at six in the morning, kind of half asleep, half awake and the title of the book just came to me. I sat up and I was like, what is that about?
And the whole morning, I just kept coming back to this. What is this topic: how to break up with your friend? I’ve never thought about anything like this before. And then it started to, I had kept it all day and I started to have this aha moment. And it really came to me, if we’re talking about productivity, and specifically female productivity where I might, as you know, my hypothesis that we’re trying to do way too much and therefore accomplishing way too little as far as it really is meaningful stuff for us. And this flashlight started to be shone on the fact of, I think we have this incredibly untapped resource in our friendships, in these very unique relationships that are not familial, they’re not romantic, and there’s so much power there, and yet we pay so little attention to them in a way.
We’re always talking about our friends, and friends always appear on shows and in movies. But if you think about it clinically or therapeutically, there’s individual therapy, there’s couples therapy, there’s family therapy. But these very important relationships receive a lot less observation, thought, auditing. And so, that’s how I kind of started on that. And I was like, wow, this is a really untapped resource for energy. And of course, energy is, I think, the cornerstone of true productivity, right? When you’re firing and all, everything’s working together. And so, yes, in a very odd way, I consider this the twin sister or cousin to that productivity conversation that I started with the first book.
TS: It’s interesting that the title came to you in a type of intuitive flash. I know when I heard the title, How to Break Up with your Friends, I thought to myself, I need that. I need help with that. And just confessionally for a moment, I think I’ve had friendships and I don’t think I’ve done a very good job. And probably a lot of people, when they hear a title like that, How to Break Up with your Friends, might have that same thing come up for them. And I know, it’s a source of a lot of pain to think that I kind of weaseled my way out of certain friendships or just sort of disappeared and what happened? I don’t know. I never had the courage or didn’t quite know how to say to the person, “Wow, I don’t find you interesting anymore.” I’m not quite sure how to say that. So, I wonder if you can talk some about that, just even the pain that comes up for people when they are struck by the title?
EF: Yes. It’s been so really unbelievable, because I’ve had two polar opposite reactions consistently. And the first one is much like what you just said, “Oh, my God, yes. It’s like you read my mind. I need this, I’m going, I need to get out of these things.” Or just like you said, I’ve had some experiences in the past, which have just not been great and whatever. And then, there’s been the other reaction, which has been, “Break up with my friends? I’m so isolated, I haven’t seen anybody, I need to understand how to make friends. Break up? I’m trying to acquire more friends.”
And so, the first thing that I want to say is that while the title of the book is How to Break Up with your Friends, there’s one chapter really dedicated to how to break up with your friends. There are nine chapters on how to really do friendship a lot better and a lot more intentionally.
Up until now, I believe we’ve been doing them because I believe the power of good friendships is so untapped and so untold. I just think, more now than ever, we really need this kind of support network. Because, frankly, I’m just saying, we get crushed under the weight of what has happened over the last two years. And I think we’re going to see the fallout from that just keep escalating. Not to be a downer, but this is a big collective psychological trauma we’ve all gone through together.
And I’m also seeing so much partner pressure, right? Because like your romantic partner, as Esther Perel says—which I think is brilliant it’s just like in modern day couples—the partner now is everything to the other person, right? They’re the lover, they’re the homemaker, they’re doing yoga lessons together, they’re just so enmeshed, and that’s really not sustainable, right? And so, I think even for our own romance coming out of work from home and just the craziness of romantic partnership in these last two years, even for that front, it is so important to be able to conscientiously say, “I have this friend, this is what this friend gives me, this is what I give to this friend. What does this relationship give me? And now, I don’t need to have this on the shoulders of my romantic partner, and this is what this friend does for me.
And so, you start to compartmentalize, which I know feels calculated, but I don’t know a better way to say it other than I think we need to stop having our romantic partners be everything. It’s just a crushing weight, right?
TS: Yes.
EF: And being received as a crushing weight as well. I feel it’s really taking the magic and the mystery and the everything you would really single out as something that was a romantic relationship is kind of being taken by the sheer weight of the pressure that these relationships now have.
TS: One of the authors we work with, his name is Stan Tatkin, who’s a relationship expert, he talks about how your intimate partner is really your survival partner. And I think during the pandemic, we feel that: you’re my survival person here.
EF: Right, right.
TS: Now you recommend that people do a type of, I’ll use this phrase, taking stock in our conversation or an audit or an inventory, if you will, of the state of friendship in my life. How do I do that? What am I looking for? What am I auditing?
EF: Well, I mean, I think you want to, first of all, just kind of take a snapshot or a list of the people that you either think are omnipresent or are omnipresent, that you feel some sort of responsibility toward. And then literally just—kind of like I did in the first book where I talked about a seven-day time challenge, where people write down almost literally everything they’re doing every single day for seven days. Then hold that up against the list of the three big goals they actually want to achieve and see how far off the mark they are. I ask people to literally write down everybody that is in their life that they would consider a friend, and then start to look at how you feel about them. What comes up for you when you—I talk about this litmus test. When you see X, Y, and Z number come up on your phone, what’s your immediate reaction? Are you ecstatic that they’re calling? Are you relieved they’re calling? Are you irritated they’re calling? Look at that, right? Because that’s all information.
And the reason I suggest to write these things down, of course, is because once it’s black and white, I feel there’s a responsibility there that you can’t quite ignore, right?, when you see what you’ve written down on a piece of paper or typed into a computer. So, I think the first starting point is just literally taking an inventory of who is in your life and then start taking an inventory of the way you sort of feel about them, just on a basic level. And then you start looking at yourself and saying, now what do I actually need in my life? What am I looking for in my life, and who aligns with that? What relationship feels like something that will nurture you and help support you.
And I always say, this goes two ways. I’m not going to keep saying that. But I mean this very much as a two-way street, when I’m saying the relationship with the other person. And start to be really, again, intentional about, hey, there’s only so many hours in the day, right? And I talk about a lot of the science in the book, about what experts think. What is the maximum amount of really good friends you could have? What is the minimum amount of really good friends you should have in terms of overall health and well-being and all kinds of the physiological benefits to friendship.
And so, really start putting together a profile. And then a lot of the work is looking at yourself, and saying, now what role do I play in these friendships? What does that say about me? Am I comfortable in that role? Or is it just something I’ve kind of been zoned in, channeled into, right? And start saying, how do I want to be actively in these friendships? And how much time can and should I commit to all of them? And so, you really just start doing the work of laying out the landscape of actually what’s going on in your life.
I mean, I know this sounds callous, but much like you would do in a closet clean out, right? OK, now what is in here, I can’t even see half the stuff that’s in here, because I have so many sweaters piled up, there’s ones in the back. Take it all out and start to say, now what is this for? Or do I have a use for this? Is this valuable? Does this fit me from another time, or does it still look good on me? It’s that kind of thing. And, again, I use that very lightly metaphorically, because these relationships are much more valuable than an old crumpled shirt, of course. But I think that the methodology about it and the approach to it is quite similar, in the sense that you don’t know what you have until you’ve taken it all out and taken a really critical look at it.
TS: Right. Now you write in the book, “We’ve accepted mediocrity in ourselves and in our friendships for far too long.” And I can imagine people doing an audit like this, and I did it in my head. And you discover, as you described in the closet, these things that—it’s easy if you’re like, this is a big yes. And it’s also easy or easier if it’s a clear no. But then you have this large, mediocre category. And it’s not that obvious what to do about it.
EF: Right. Yes. Exactly. Totally. For me, I think just the unwrapping, the exposing of the mediocrity is half the battle. And again, you don’t want to do any kind of knee-jerk, as I say, I think, something like it in the book—it isn’t about going through your contacts with the machete. It’s not like, bah, she bores me, or whatever. It is really being thoughtful about these people. And maybe it’s just about, instead of grouping everybody as your friend, grouping them—certain people, depends where they are—in a different category, and identifying this is a person that I’m fine if I see once a year, and that is my expectation of this person. And if that expectations feels reasonable to that other person, if you either talk to them or guess that feels like that’s where the rhythm is, perfect. Now you’ve put that person in that category.
And so, it’s the exact kind of thing. I mean, at least I do that with my closet, where I’m like, oh, those funny stockings that I definitely don’t want to get rid of, but they sure can’t hold a lot of real estate, because I’m going to use them maybe once a year for a holiday party. And so I put them away in the closet. I know they’re there, I’m conscious of that relationship, but I’m not spending a ton of time on it. And I think just the act of organizing yourself in that way mentally frees up a lot of energy. It’s energy that then you can give to people that you’ve identified, like, wow, I still really feel great about this person, but because I don’t see her all the time, when we do get together, we spend so much time catching up on kind of life admin stuff as opposed to really connecting. I’m going to use some of the energy that I freed up just putting other friends in the right kind of categories. I’m going to use that energy and really say, I’m going to make a bigger effort to see this person, instead of every six months, I want to see this person once a month. I’m going to make that effort.
And instead of then having to catch up on like life admin stuff, you can really connect and say, “What’s going on for you?” and hang out with that person in a real way, as opposed to like, I’ve just got a limited amount of time and a limited, limited amount of energy. And so, I’ve got an hour for you every six months. I think to get the most out of these relationships, the ones that are really worth fostering, you have to make the commitment and the time commitment. And that’s one of the hardest things to do. Because when life gets busier, when life gets crazy, it feels like, at least for me, the first thing I would do in my old life is like, oh, drink with a friend? That’s out because I’ve got da, da, da, da, da. And that is, I feel, a mistake.
I feel now, after I’ve done this work and this experiment, it’s like, no, no, no, no. That’s not going to be my default setting, because it’s not just about seeing a friend and having fun. This is a chance to rejuvenate. This is a chance to connect, this is a chance to fill up my coffers again. So that won’t be the first thing that comes off my list. I want to really look and say, is there another way I can find the time for this person, because I consciously made the commitment to this relationship. We’ve renewed the vows of this relationship.
TS: Yes, I want to talk to you about that a little bit more. Because I imagine you’re a really busy person. You’re a mom.
EF: Very busy.
TS: You’re a digital entrepreneur, you’re just launching this book now, a lot going on. As someone who’s also a busy person, and also, I don’t know about you, but I’m very introverted.
EF: I’m very introverted.
TS: So that’s another thing that I wanted to ask you about. In general, I don’t get energy from people.
EF: Right, right, right.
TS: I get energy from being alone and being with animals and trees and things like that, but not humans talking. And so, given busy person, introverted, no, I’m not going to reach out. Even though with certain people, it is nourishing. So how do you get through that and say, oh, this is really worth it?
EF: Well, I think that’s the thing. And I think you hit on a really great part. I talked about this in the book. The first thing is to know yourself and to really understand who you are, what you’re made of, and kind of what your profile is. Because as an introvert like you are, you know that you have probably very firm boundaries around how you’re going to spend your time and with whom. Because you, like me, I’m totally depleted when I see a lot of people or there’s a lot of action externally, outside of the house. So I feel much better when I’m in my house and calm and quiet.
So that’s the first part, it’s just knowing. Because I feel a lot of people say, I’m an introvert, I’m an extrovert, but don’t really understand how that then metabolizes in their life and how that plays out. So, I think it’s important to know, are you somebody that needs the attention in a good way, thrives on the energy of other people, or are you somebody that needs a lot of downtime and self-reflection? So that’s the first thing. The thing with introverts is, though, I find that a lot of them will still have friends. I mean, this is true of me even today, constantly asking me to do things. So, then I’m put in this position where I have to say, turn them down, turn them down, which doesn’t feel good either.
It’s about managing. And so, if you have that under control, if people know that about you and they know, well, I’m not going to invite Tami to this dinner, because even though we feel we’re very fond of one another, she’s going probably say no, and I don’t want to be in the position where I’m constantly getting rejected. I think in that case, that’s when it’s important to really pay attention. But even if you’re an introvert, I do think, I mean, at least all the science that I looked at that physiologically, psychologically, from a stress perspective, engagement with other humans and companionship is very important. And it doesn’t have to be a bajillion people. For an introvert, maybe it’s one or two, right? But it has to be kind of consistent, and there has to be a kind of omnipresent feeling that you have these relationships that are valuable in your life.
And so again, whatever number you land on, only you can answer what the right number is. But there is a number, I would say. And look, just you knowing that you love interacting with dogs and nature is great, but that is probably 50 steps ahead of most people that I talked to. They’re completely unaware of what makes them tick and what makes them happy. It’s a lot of people out there with wheels spinning, right? So just to get down to OK, let’s talk about you. This is a book about friendship, but let’s talk about you. This is the most important starting point. So, that kind of self-work is crucial to being a good friend of any kind, is to be a good friend to yourself and understand what you’re made of and what you need. Because only then can you communicate that to others.
TS: Now, this other point that you brought up had to do with having a certain kind of intentionality with our friends, like, this is someone I really value, so I’m going to work on this relationship. I’m going to invest in this friendship. And one of the things you point out is that we’re very comfortable knowing that our intimate relationship is going to take work. We’re going to have to go through all kinds of hard stuff.
EF: Totally.
TS: It’s the crucible, greatest spiritual work there is, whatever. And people have the sense, too, that parenting is going to be tough. But I think there’s an idea, and I think I’ve had this idea that friendship should be my easy refuge. I shouldn’t have to work on it, I shouldn’t have to be intentional about it. It should just like magically kind of happen. But what you’re saying is, why won’t we work on friendship the same way we work on these other relationships in our lives?
EF: Right. Yes, exactly. And that’s kind of why I say, when I talk about us doing friendships in a mediocre way, is that there is such a lower expectation or higher, I guess, expectation, and these should just be kind of flawless, floaty relationships that give, give, give, and never ask anything of us. And that is not real, that’s not part of the human spectrum, right? I mean, nothing can just be all good. Even all good would become bad at a certain point, because you need that kind of yin to the yang.
And I think humans are complex, challenging people who, if you’re doing things right, are constantly evolving, right? And with that change comes friction, it comes in relationship. If you’re having a real relationship, there are going to be times when you don’t agree with somebody. Or if somebody has hurt your feelings, or you just don’t feel like you’re jiving and yet I don’t feel like there’s any kind of language or any kind of blueprint for how you kind of navigate through these relationships.
And so, by understanding that conflict will be part of them, we kind of like, this is weird. I’m not dating this person. So why am I going to say I have these expectations and stuff? It feels weird, but at the same time, if you want a really rich, fruitful relationship, the only way to get there is to be real, and then to deal with the fallout from being real with people. And I think by then also, if you can’t manage the conflicts, you start to understand, OK, this might not be the right relationship for me any longer. So, these are really good guideposts when you come up against conflict.
And I think especially for women, it’s just much more difficult to say what you want and say getting through conflicts, the relationship becomes stronger, or [say] what you need and demand that you get it. And especially, then, from another woman, it just becomes a very complex thing. And I don’t want to generalize, but when I looked around at my relationships with my male friends, or when I look at my brother’s male friendships, conflict happens all the time, but not in a bad way. So, when I’m dealing with some of my guy friends, if they irritate me, I just say it. I say, “That’s not cool. Stop doing that.” They either go, “Whoa, I didn’t realize that.” Or “No, actually, this is why I’m doing it.” And we just kind of get through it and there’s nothing really still hanging. The wheels aren’t still spinning about like, “I wonder what he meant by that.” It’s just kind of like addressed and we move on.
And yet, when I was looking back at my female friendships, I just saw how many times I talked myself out of saying when something was bothering me or upsetting me. I’d spin all these different narratives of what could happen or what she could be thinking or what this might look like, if I say it like this? There’s all this other stuff that takes so much energy, as opposed to just saying, “Hey, this is the way I feel. And I wanted to share that with you because it’s important, and you need to hear this.” And there’s such a clear way, I think, to get the other side of conflict. We just need to start talking about it and looking at these relationships, as you said, in a different way than rather well, friendships should just kind of be. And if we want to get the most out of them, we really have to be active in that.
TS: Now, you bring up this notion that I’ve heard about from the world of couples therapy, where rupture and repair is really valuable. We have to be willing to do that for our intimate relationships to grow stronger. How do we apply that to friendship? And importantly, what are the skills? What are the skills we need to do that with a friend?
EF: Right. So yes, I am also an associate psychotherapist, so there are certainly some ideas from couples therapy and just therapy in general in the book. And rupture and repair, I think, is one of the most important things in therapy. And usually, that means that the client or the patient has some sort of conflict with the therapist. So, the therapist has let them down or said something that they felt was inappropriate or whatever. And the idea is that if you can work through that and say what you really mean and say, “You know, you hurt me and this is a problem for me, and here’s why” —that’s actually an opportunity in therapy, because then you can work through that conflict together and come out on the other side much stronger. And I truly believe the same thing should apply within friendships.
So, I think one of the things that—even in therapy, how that would have to work is that the client or the patient has to, at some point, either allude to or say directly, I’m having a problem with you and here’s why. Or their behavior has to be such where the therapist, if they’re paying attention says, “OK, something shifted here. What’s going on?” And then ultimately, that client or patient has to be honest and say, “This is what you did and this is why I’m upset and this is what’s really bothering me.” And this exact same thing is true, I think, in friendship. The starting point is realizing you’re upset and being able to communicate that in a clearer way to the other person, and then have them bounce off that and take it from there.
But the idea is to not run from conflict, because when you’re running from conflict or pushing it down, you’re either not being true to your feelings—but what can often happen is, that’s when you start to become numb and indifferent to the relationship. And this doesn’t happen in one fell swoop. It’s the little incremental things that build distance and distance and distance, because what you’re doing by pushing your feelings down and not addressing them, it’s kind of self-numbing. The problem with that is then you become numb to the good stuff as well as the bad. And that’s when the divide becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. Or you push it down, you push it down, push it down, push it down, and then it comes out in a way that’s not controlled. And then oftentimes, something that is kind of small to begin with becomes this big thing because you’ve been repressing this thing and then it comes out and it’s like, “And you did this.” And the person doesn’t understand why you’re so upset because the reaction does not match that the infraction.
So, the best way, and it’s not easy—I talked about an experiment I did in my own relationship in the book. I had this problem with this friend who was constantly late. And in Los Angeles, that’s kind of a thing because there’s so much driving, but it was only to a certain point and this person was chronically late. I loved everything else about her, but this thing, instead of me just addressing it, became this big thing for me. Every time we would meet, I would start, just be bubbling up, watching my clock. “She’s five minutes late. She’s ten minutes late.” And so, when it did finally come out, and I talked about this in the book, it felt like she could not understand what was going on because I was just so infuriated.
And it was just the result of a buildup of months and months, if not probably years of me just getting really, really upset that this person was always late, and I felt so disrespected. But instead of just bringing it up at the time, and saying, “Hey, listen, I really love you, and I really respect and want this friendship, but this is a need for me. You cannot show up 30 minutes late. This is really upsetting to me.” Instead of being frank about it at that time, I let it build up and then it was a real problem when I did bring it up, because she was very caught off guard.
TS: So, it didn’t go well?
EF: In the end, it did. But it felt like it was coming off the rails for most of the thing, because we spent a lot of time debating or talking about my reaction as opposed to the being late. So, I started to feel pretty attacked, because I was like, “How are we talking about me right now?” Anyway, but we got it back on track. But the point of that is, that whole thing is unnecessary and punctuality is a big thing to me, but it doesn’t need to be like this big, growing resentment against someone I otherwise really appreciate and respect and like in my life.
TS: I can think of so many difficult conversations that friendships need to go through. And I told you that I have this residual guilt and terrible feeling about how to break up with your friends in the wrong way. And I think the conversation I didn’t know how to have is, “I don’t want to spend a lot of time with you. I just want to see you like once a year.” And I didn’t know how to say that to someone. And I still don’t really know how to say that to someone. How do you say that kind of thing to someone?
EF: Right. Well, I would say in that example, I would start this out, I mean, if this is a person that generally you like, and generally you value and respect, so it’s not a case of you’ve been wronged or they’re doing something.
TS: Nothing like that.
EF: I would just have a conversation about expectations and say, “I really like you. I really value you. I want to be connected to you. But where I’m at, I just want to manage the expectation that I would love to see you.” I don’t know if you want to be so literal as once a year, but say like, “I just want to be clear where I’m at and expectations, and I hope …” Hold on, I need another piece of information. Sorry, I got to back up. So, with this person, are they constantly trying to have plans with you?
TS: Yes.
EF: OK. So that’s all right.
TS: And also, it’s a historic friendship. This is from a previous time in my life. And it’s a friendship that had a level of closeness, but there was a feeling as we got involved with different marriage partners that I just felt there wasn’t really the same kind of draw.
EF: Connection. Right, right.
TS: Yes. The magnetism kind of faded and it felt more obligatory, and then I disappeared.
EF: OK. And he or she keeps trying to …?
TS: For a period, but then I, to use the contemporary word, “ghosted” the person, yes.
EF: So, are you asking what you should have done differently? Or do want that person back?
TS: I don’t necessarily really want the relationship back because I’m so protective over my time and I’m not trying to make this overly focused on me.
EF: No, no.
TS: I’m trying to ask a question that I think may come up for a lot of people I think, and also because it, I carry it as a wound. And I think if I’d handled it differently, there wouldn’t be that sense of that wound still being there. But it’s how you change the intimacy level in a friendship when it’s no longer nourishing you?
EF: I then would…just exactly what you just said, I would say, and I don’t know if this is in your case, because I just don’t know the rhythm of the relationship. If this is a phone call or if this is an email, either is better than ghosting in my opinion, unless you think that the other person just absolutely cannot handle it would be shattered to receive this information. But generally, that’s just not true of people. So, in this case, I would probably write an email and say everything that you just said, which is, “You know, you are a very, very valuable person to me for a long, long time. Our lives have gone in different courses, different marriage partners, whatever. And as such, I feel like there is a chasm that has grown between us. But that is not to say that I do not respect the time that we’ve had together. Just to manage expectations moving forward that ….” Hold on, are you actually going to send this?
TS: I’m not sure yet.
EF: OK. So, I think the important thing is that you will always carry the bulk of the relationship very fondly in your heart, many lessons learned. I just want to be upfront with you, because of the way our lives have evolved, I feel like we have separated in a way that makes me feel anxious or less inclined to keep up the rhythm of the friendship. And the more that I tried to do that, the more I start to feel angst or resentment. And so, I feel I owe it to you to let you know that well, this is certainly not a thing where it’s like, I’m not friends with this person. I just want to manage the expectation that I would love to see you every so often. But I think we need to adjust the cadence of the friendship so your feelings don’t get hurt and so that I don’t feel bad. It’s important for me to let you know how important you have been in my life, but times have changed.
TS: Well, let me ask you a general question. What do you feel about the whole category of kind of making amends when it comes to previous friendships?
EF: In the sense of you get back together with that person or you apologize?
TS: Yes. You apologize, confess, share more.
EF: I think anytime that you can have honesty and clarity and kind of speak your truth, and I think that while that might be painful to some people, as for so many people that I interviewed for the book, who had stories where they had been ghosted, the constant theme was, and I’m still thinking about it today. What happened? What did I do? And so, these questions, again, if we want to talk about bringing it back to what we were saying right at the beginning, about this energy. We don’t really understand because we’re not thinking about this stuff all the time. But how quickly, when they started talking about it and then they’re right back in it. And the hard drive is still spinning, we just don’t know it.
And so, in terms of taking back some of the energy, I think it’s great to number one, reveal these things. And number two, I think it’s an invaluable gift, even if it’s hard or difficult or whatever, to make amends, to have clarity, to be honest, because so many people—even though on a day to day basis, aren’t like, “I wonder what happened there?” The second you tap into it, it’s a lot. It went nowhere. At least with the women that I interviewed, the people that had been ghosted, they got back into the emotionality and it was like they were almost reliving it real time. So, I think that kind of clarity, even if I think about them receiving an email, or a call, I feel like they would be, “Oh, OK.” And could have some closure on something.
And I think for the person that is sending the email or making the amends, it’s a great teachable moment, a great learning moment. I think you’ve done a service to the relationship. That relationship is not still existing, but I think that’s paying homage to the relationship. I think even if the message you’re delivering is bittersweet, I think the guiding energy there is respect for what you once had.
TS: All right. Thank you. Thank you, Erin. OK. In describing your new book, you write, “The essence of this book is a love letter to the relationships that have the potential to be foundational and enduring and endearing, if we do them right.” And I wanted to know more what you mean by that, “if we do them right.” What does it mean to do these friendships that we really want to invest in “right”?
EF: Yes. Well, I think it means first of all, as I said a little bit before the starting point of doing friendship right, is really understanding who you are and where you are and what you need and what you want. That’s the first move you can make to have any relationship kind of flow or provide value. And then, the second thing is to, I think one of the biggest things that I’m seeing now is just how distracted we are. There’s so much chaos and noise, right? And so, making the choice to be present with the people you’ve identified who really matter and are meaningful to you. It’s better to schedule 30 minutes with somebody and not have your phone in the mix and just connect, than have a two-hour drinks, dinner, but you’re scrolling through your phone, you’re talking to seven different people.
So, I think being really intentional and really, really listening, really paying attention, not to just what being said, but the nonverbal cues, and really leaning in to the camaraderie that can come with friendship. And I think, just making choices of this person and this relationship and this relationship and this relationship, in and of itself is such a powerful move, as opposed to—I feel friendships, we just let happen to us. Again, because we don’t take ownership, because we don’t delve into the conflict, to the real depths of what they can be. They’re just kind of things washing over us. And I think to do friendship right we have to be as active and as intentional as we can in them.
And by doing that, then necessarily, you can’t have 100 friends, just that core group of friends. So, you’ve got to be really aware, intentional in making choices around who you want in life. And that is so empowering. So, that’s what I would say about doing friendship right. And then, what you need from those relationships and what you’re giving, that’s very personal to you and then the other person in that relationship. I think the starting point is yourself. And then the second point is just to take action, make choices, strip the chaos away when you’re interacting with these friendships, because that’s where you can really get to the juice, the heart, the gold, the magic, whatever. But underneath that surface of all my friends is a real, I think, pot of gold.
TS: In the book, you include a friend questionnaire that you can go through with your friends as a way to talk and dialogue deeper about your friendship. And here was one of the, I thought, fall-off-your-chair laugh moments for me right before you get to the questionnaire: “My advice is to do this and then go out for a drink, not the other way around.” I thought that was really funny. I was imagining myself drinking first. This not going to go well. But you have these questions to talk about. And I thought I’d just bring up a couple because I like that.
EF: Sure.
TS: “When was the last time I irritated you and you didn’t say anything? And why didn’t you say anything?” And I thought, oh my goodness. If I were really to answer that correctly, and then who knows what I would hear back? So tell me, have you done this with friends and how did it work?
EF: What was so funny is that—so I interviewed all these people for the book, some friends, some experts, this whole group. And right as I was coming to the end of writing the book, I realized I hadn’t interviewed or talked to my real best friend, Sophie. And so I thought, you know what, I’m going to do this with Sophie. And so we kind of, again, it was real-time learnings on the spot, right? I came up with these ideas. She came over to my house and she kind of plops down, she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. And funny enough, we had kind of a tense moment, I want to say four or five months before. It did not involve me directly. It involved—she and my husband got into a little thing, whatever. And they both immediately called me and I kind of was in the middle of writing my thesis actually. And I was like, “I’m not going to be a part of this for even one second. Figure it out yourself.”
And so, we had a little dust off and things were tense for maybe a week after that and then we never really talked about it. And I thought that was fine, because I had said clearly I don’t want to have anything to do with this. But so, when we sat down to do this questionnaire, and I’d kind of forgotten about that thing that happened. When that question came up—when was the last time I did or said something that irritated you, and you didn’t say anything, and why not? That’s what she brought up. And I was like, and we went into this whole thing about that thing that had happened and it was unbelievable because it revealed so, so much.
It’s just unbelievable when you sweep something under the rug, how much there can be beneath it. And I was so thankful that we sat down and talked about this, because we really got to the bottom of some stuff. And I felt so warm and fuzzy when we finished doing it. I mean, we obviously worked through that conflict. But I felt so reinvigorated by the relationship. I felt a great sense of love for her. These are all great things, right? These are great things to feel, especially in the middle of a crappy pandemic. But yes, it was tense. It got a little tense, I was sweating.
TS: When I read these questions, I was sweating. And there’s a couple of them—“Are there subjects you feel like you just can’t discuss with me?” Oh, yes. “Is there anything about you that I don’t know that you want me to know?” I mean, to answer these questions, you have to really take a lot of time and space, and then be willing to share in a very deep way.
EF: Yes, totally.
TS: “Is there anything you need or want from me that you’re not getting?” I don’t know if I want to ask my friends that? Are you kidding me? They’re going to have a list. Do I want to hear that? Is there anything you need or want from me that you’re not getting? Whoa. Yes, what I realized is that you’re looking for a kind of, this is really a depth of relationship that you’re saying that’s possible for people in their friendships, that you can go this deep.
EF: Right. Totally. And again, you’re not going to do this with your casual friend. This is for like that core, your kind of ride-or-die, two or three people. It depends how introverted or extroverted you are, but that number is going to be pretty small. And so yes, I do think it’s possible. And I do think it’s worthy. And as and as I said, I think just doing it with my own best friend—and again, we are fairly conflict free. So, it’s not like this was a really loaded situation where we’re walking into this thing, let’s sit down and talk about this, we’ve got a lot of built up resentments. This is a relationship that’s going pretty, pretty good, except the odd dustup here and there.
But it was really revealing and I think what I would say about it the most, is just the thought that we would be so honest and vulnerable. The answers are important, but it is the connection, when you’re being that honest with somebody that at the end of it, that’s the only thing. That’s what I was left with, feeling this energy from the connection of just really going there with somebody that you care about and love. And I think that’s where you want to get. I mean, it can be uncomfortable, but it also can be great. And I think that’s where you want to go to tap in to these friendships to really make them mean something.
TS: Yes. Yes. Just to conclude, Erin. When you imagine the tens of thousands of humans who will be reading How to Break Up with your Friends: Finding Meaning, Connection, and Boundaries in Modern Friendships. What are the most important things that you want people to get out of the book?
EF: I think probably—and I would say this has maybe even true of my first book—this idea of really, at a granular level, getting to a deeper understanding of who you are. I think this is where all the richness lies. I think this is how you tap in to your creativity. I think this is how you fill up your energy—this deeper understanding of who you are and then understanding how much more profound that can be when you connect with people in an intentional, meaningful way.
And I think, again, there is such freedom and there are so few boundaries on what friendships can be, as opposed to a familial relationship or a romantic relationship. There’s so much opportunity here that it is worth exploring. And I think the more you reveal and the more you connect with others, the more you reveal about yourself and connect to yourself.
Even though this is a book about friendship, it is still fundamentally a book about understanding and uncovering deeper parts of who you are and making greater sense of meaning in your own life, and then being able to impart that and share that with people as you go deeper into who you are.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Erin Falconer. She’s the author of the new book with Sounds True, How to Break Up with Your Friends: Finding Meaning, Connection, and Boundaries in Modern Friendships. And when you’re doing that comedy thing, Erin, shoot me a note. Shoot me a note.
EF: I’ll invite you.
TS: All right, very good. Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to Insights at the Edge. You can read a full transcript of today’s interview at resources.SoundsTrue.com/podcast. That’s resources.SoundsTrue.com/podcast. If you’re interested, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app. And if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave Insights at the Edge a review. I absolutely love getting your feedback and being connected. Sounds True: waking up the world.
